The night of the reunion had slid by in a smear of old jokes, recycled until the juice was wrung out of them. He’d felt old, and tired, and a strong sense that this would be the last time for all of them. The six of them who had remained friends when so many others weren’t, shored up by the two marriages in the group, and Karen who never went away. He understood that now, and in a way he felt sorry for her. Having to watch as Ali swanned about, gabbing about her kids’ achievements and the price of her new house. Giggling behind her hands. ‘I shouldn’t say, and I hate to brag, but isn’t it just mad? Almost a million? Can you believe it?’ Karen smiling thinly, probably thinking of that hole she rented in Birmingham. Everyone – well, Jodi – had tried to push Karen and Bill together at uni. As if it was some stupid American sitcom where everyone had to pair off in the end. Almost Shakespearean, almost incestuous, as if there was no one else in the world but the Group. The blonde Swedish bird of Bill’s, she’d been sexy, if a bit older, but Callum hadn’t liked the cool appraising way her eyes passed over his face, the few times they’d met. And she’d been four inches taller than him. It wasn’t right, in a woman. And Karen had some fellas over the years, some builder or something, slumming it with manual labour. It had amused him and Mike to ask the guy his opinion about the tax system, see him stumble. The lecturer was smarter but wasn’t ageing well, already grey and cracked round the eyes, and you could tell Karen wanted something else. She wanted Mike, and she’d never get him. Callum had known before her that Mike was ending it. Poor bitch. Poor stupid bloody bitch.

It was maybe this that had made him follow Karen into the garden. He’d gone to the loo – Bill was in bed already – and when he stumbled back out Mike was passed out in the swing seat. Pathetic bastard. It was dark, a pitch-like dark you never got in London, and turning cold. Mike’s jumper was on the decking and without thinking he’d pulled it on, rubbing at his arms. It was soft and expensive, Mikey flaunting his cash again. And Karen, poor cow, had gone wandering across the lawn wringing her hands, pissed and sobbing. His heart broke for her and without really thinking he was lumbering after her, to hug her or share something, share their pain – Hey, Kar, I know how you feel, Mike’s a bastard, a bastard who always comes up smelling of roses no matter what he does, and my wife is up the duff with some German sperm and I’m obsolete. I have to pay women to fuck me.